Like I wrote the other day, no doubt these players are doing the absolute best they can.

Too slow, old, small, not physical enough on the backline and with the changes made at forward the same issue.

Colorado's forwards and defenders just picked the New York Islanders apart and beat up on them good because they were slow in skating/reading/reacting far too often.

I noticed the players struggling for air in the higher altitude.

Isles could have used three of those younger, bigger, fast-skating, physical defenders that Colorado had. Just as they needed a few bigger, fast-skating, physical forwards not named Matt Martin to protect Tavares better.

Even struggling Colorado saw what was going on and one of their players started yelling at his team and it worked. They just wore the Islanders down and beat on them because they could. The chances the Isles seemed to get were off of Colorado willing to trade chances, with a few smart plays as well.

Of course, the Isles should have won, Grabner's chances (especially in the final second of regulation) is as good a chance as can be generated. Was the officiating poor from not calling Reasoner vs MacDonald early to other bad calls? Yes.

It's not the point.

Win or lose it does not change how Colorado dominated in the physical and skating department, even if the Isles are as desperate as a team can be for points.

The point of the final three months of last season was a moderately to above avg successful team that was very hard to play against virtually every game, that did not back down, it was successful in the standings and on the ice.

That club seems now like it's a distant memory with the tweaks made in the summer to get older, slower, smaller, and easier to defend/attack.

Nothing I see short of drastic changes on the older backline and forward spots to get younger and bigger changing this.

Truth of the matter is unlike every other year, this time Garth Snow pushed the wrong buttons in who he identified as players who can help take his core to the next level.

Perhaps they can steal a game or two here and there, but the kind of hockey that needs to be played to make up seven points (just to get to the eighth seed) is not going to happen with the club as currently constructed.

There will be no hiding Sunday or in the next two weeks moving forward from what has been working against them since opening night as the schedule picks up, the standings leave no room for falling any further behind.

Common Sense Time:Yes, we have Dolan's joke professional media covering us in print/television, when they are not being ordered by courts to show games in HD they claim for years are all shown in HD.

They are now so lazy they go to amateur fan blogs to break fictional trades, get over it, we have written about this enough, I made clear it's only going to get worse and the coverage is a joke. Arthur Staple is the latest former Ranger beatwriter who could care less about covering the New York Islanders unless it's to stir something up.

Many of these people are the same ones telling you the team must trade a goalie, despite the fact the goaltending is not costing them games to this point. They are not around the club daily if at all, they do not know what management or the players are saying (or not saying) they likely do not even watch the games.

As Michael Peca said long ago, if you are not in the lockeroom and unless a player tells you something directly, do not believe it.

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